Category: hidden sin

A Simple Word to the Backslidden

“I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”

Jeremiah 24:7

First of all, I understand more than you realize. Sometimes I’m white-hot, other times I’m not. I can be enthusiastic, and then I’m not quite there. Being a believer who suddenly does not become a believer is to be in a hard place; I often struggle with this. I try to justify things, but inwardly I know, I’m just trying to find a life without Him.

I will not preach to you.

But sometimes I have cursed the day I went forward to the altar. Perhaps it was merely manipulation and my wishful thinking. Maybe I was just looking for something that would give me a meaning. I don’t know for sure. But I do know what it means to be miserable.

At this point I’m looking for something that would help me forget what really happened then. I look around for just about anything that’ll “hide” me from faith. Something that will nullify that deep down I know is true. Hiding is slowly becoming a weird art form. I seem to launch myself into anything that will cover up this pain.

Wearing a mask can be a terribly lost way of living.

But what does God’s word, the Bible say?

First God still loves me. That love cannot be degraded or diminished. It is steady and constant, even when it’s obvious that it’s undeserved or unwelcome. I may try to ignore it but that doesn’t change Him. He is in love with you, and He is trying to woo you into His presence. You’ll never be able to minimize that.

Second, we somehow understand that sin (whatever that means) is very real, even if we try hard to cover it up. When I backslide, much effort must be given to hiding and escaping this awareness. Often, I choose to look to things that might seem relatively good, but if the truth be told it’s nothing more than escaping what is real.

So, what happens next?

Do I swallow my pride and ego, or do I keep building up a resistance to what is true and real? Do I keep faking to avoid His presence, or do I turn again to Him and find His mercy and love still waiting for me? This is your decision, monumental, but very much your next step.

His love for you is deep and solid. Your attempt to escape it doesn’t nullify that. You may pursue anything or everything, trying to “hide” but it really amounts to nothing. You may count on pleasure or happiness from sin, but its continuance never really lasts. You know this, and I know this. And it doesn’t really work, does it?

Coming to Jesus a second time must be your very next step.

You’ll never find any kind of peace until you return to Jesus.

Please, if you wish, contact me at slowe299@yahoo.com. I will try to take up any issue you might have. I’ll also pray and believe that God will bring you home. Please connect with me.

“I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away from him.”

Hosea 14:4

Repeated Sin

I must tell you this right from the start! You must believe it before we can go any further.

God is not against you because of your repeated sin. Rather He is for you against that repeated sin.

(I want to apologize for my brother pastors who may have told you otherwise.)

“Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.”

“7 Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. 9 Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God.”

1 John 3:6-9 

Over and over, we sin the same sin until it has become habitual. It is exactly the opposite of godliness (that’s why we call it ungodliness.) It’s truly the other side of the proverbial coin. It haunts everyone who sincerely wants to follow Jesus.

Let’s understand these things. I’ve listed seven consequences of repeated sin.

  1. It creates hypocrisy and self-hatred.
  2. It nullifies witness, and the work of missions.
  3. It cancels out real praise, worship, and Bible reading.
  4. It destroys real fellowship between other believers.
  5. Any personal ministry is degraded and turned upside down.
  6. It blinds others, and deceives them to who we really are inside.
  7. It always engenders guilt and unworthiness, especially toward God.

I once lived in a house that had a severe mold problem. The previous owner, in an attempt to make things liveable, painted over the offending walls. He meant well, of that I am sure, but the problem of the mold was never dealt with properly. No matter how much you slathered on the paint, the mold was still alive and well. It simply worked its way to the surface. Sin is like this.

Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 7, gets to the root of our “mold.” If we read it carefully (as we should) we’ll start to grasp what it means to walk biblically.

“I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.”

“And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.”

Paul floats different concepts our way. Law, sin, nature. Each word must be processed.

“Law” is something that is always true. (Think of the Law of gravity.) “Sin” or falling short. The Greek word is pretty descriptive–it means “an arrow that misses the target.” “Nature,” or the intrinsic character of something.

We use these words so seldom that they seem archaic and outdated; but not so. Understanding these three opens up the entire realm of spiritual holiness. When we realize that the Word explains our situation so clearly we become convinced that holiness is possible. We begin to hope again.

Tolerating repeated sin is a terrible form of “spiritual suicide.” It always breaks fellowship with the living God. But as a believer, God doesn’t break fellowship with us, rather He comes closer and patches up our self-inflicted wounds. But even then we will not understand Him.

The Father’s heart is for us to be heart-holy. This is His perfect plan for us. 

“So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:4-6

But there is an all powerful remedy to our sickness-plague of repeated sin. Almost always we stare at this ugliness, it seems we’re fixated on it. Often there are two approaches we take regarding repeated sin. 1) We ignore and flail out a life of “holiness.” We minimize this. 2) We become hyper-aware of our sin and guilt. We maximize sin to the point where we lose all joy and peace.

“Looking at the wound of sin will never save anyone. What you must do is look at the remedy.”

D.L. Moody

I need to stop teaching now. Rereading this has made me slightly frustrated about what I’ve written. If any of this has helped, I’m glad. I’d like to close this with a Billy Sunday quote. He explains the seriousness of repeated sin. 

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!” 

 Billy Sunday

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American Corinthian Christians

Ruins at Corinth

 “It is not my business to judge those who are not part of the church. God will judge them. But you must judge the people who are part of the church. The Scripture says, “You must get rid of the evil person among you.” 

1 Cor. 5:1

We live in a time of incredible sin, every body— the world, and the Church. Our rebellion has gone viral.  We’ve been so inured and taken by it we find we can’t imagine its deep influence.  Two generations ago things were astonishingly simple.  Today’s sin has gotten sophisticated.

Paul in his letter to the Corinth church was compelled to point out a few things.  The culture in Corinth was evil and dark.  Everyone went through it.  It saturated everything— it soaked everyone, from head-to-toe.

The Church in 1 Cor. 5 felt that they were doing the right thing by accepting people living in continuous sin.  It seems as if their liberal hearts were opened to receive sinners of all varieties. 

Paul however, will not be manipulated by human logic.  He instead presses us to follow him, to the good and the true.  He admits (point blank, mind you) that he has no authority over the lost, the secular, and the world.  He has nothing, ‘zilch’ to say about the way the heathen behave.  “It’s none of my business’ says Paul.  And he turns, and walks away.

We Christians, as believers however, are his business.  As part of the Church we are brought under its oversight and its direction.  It dictates to us now what is proper — acceptable, and honoring.  But the ‘worldling, he goes free, doing whatever he desires. We however, come into a direct and sure correction of our ways.

What is your sphere of influence, and how far does it extend?  For Paul, he recognized his limitations.  And we must see ours.  The urge to intervene is very strong, but we must back off and wait for God’s righteous judgement. It’s something we don’t ever want to see.

We really must detach from our worldly commitments, we are to be a strong, sure light in their midst.  But we are not to be the judges of this world system. We watch for Him, that’s enough. Keep your oil full, and be ready to join Him.

Today, is a good time to start.

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Freezing a Brother

 “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Colossians 3:13, ESV

Since this blog originates in Alaska, and since winter is upon us, this post seems fitting. It’s cold. And, well, I’ve been thinking about things that have happened to me recently.

We have a sinful tendency to “freeze” people that offend us.

We do it with our words, attitudes, actions. It is called unforgiveness, or stigma, or just plain contempt. It locks another person in a place were they will stay forever, and you won’t ever have to deal with them.

We glaciate others with extraordinary ease.

Someone offends me, or irritates me and I blast them. In my mind I solidify them into one spot, and there they are locked. Sealed away, and out of my thinking. I sometimes call it “discernment.” And then I can avoid those pesky urges to humble myself.

I have been frozen by others, and to be quite honest, I have been the ‘freezer’ as well.

The sad part is that we ourselves are so far from perfect. When we zap someone we will never, ever ‘receive’ from that person. We can even preclude them as outside of the grace of God. (And usually that’s what happens.)

“You offend me, and I will never forget it, and you will never be more than an evil miscreant to me.” My rationale is “life is too short for hassling with jerks like you.” But yet I can’t fully accept that idea. That is not God’s will for me, and I know it.

We end up debasing ourselves by our own unforgiveness.

We restrict others from the Holy Spirit’s transforming ability. In our mind’s eye, the wicked person will never be able to offer up anything of value. We freeze–locking them into a place. And a vast amount comes from an unforgiveness that is ‘fallen,’ and an unbelief in God’s grace and power.

Mr-Freeze-1Furthermore, any use of our ‘freeze gun’ freezes us as well. Unforgiveness turns on us (which we didn’t count on) and the effect is cumulative. We can only absorb so much an we get hard and cold.

One more thing. We do this to whole groups of people. The alcoholics, the mentally ill, other races. This can be called prejudice or stigma. Ask yourself this–have you ever been stigmatized or demonized?  You will usually know it. But we cannot afford to be controlled by our unforgiveness.

There is far too much at stake.

“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him and let it drop (leave it, let it go), in order that your Father Who is in heaven may also forgive you your [own] failings and shortcomings and let them drop.”

Mark 11:25, Amplified

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